Circle Nine

The rain falls around me in torrents, flowing from the mouth of the cave above us to the ground by my feet like a waterfall, splashing up at my toes. I am barefoot. I stand behind the sheet of water and let it mist around me, wetting my face and clothing. Its cold beads touch my skin all over like a thousand tiny needles. The rain has been like this all day. Sam is curled up on the metal cot behind me. Water drips through the ceiling on and around him. He’s shivering, feverish. His body has turned a pale color, and his skin is nearly translucent. I never thought his skin, dark and rich like latte, could become this color, as if his anger drained it of its pigment. It is damp and unpleasant in the cave — so strange and different — but in a moment it may be incandescent and lovely again as always. Everything is distorted in my head, and I don’t know which reality I’ll wake up to anymore. For now, the air smells of mildew, and the walls leave a slimy residue on my fingertips when I make the mistake of touching them. We have Sam’s cot and a folded-up blanket for me on the floor, and our clothes. We have run out of food, and Sam is needing his medicine more than ever. I think maybe his medicine is slowly killing him. But I know he’s dead without it.

Even the rats seem afraid. They’ve long since stopped scuttling away. Instead, they huddle in the corners at night like they are on our side and we are all on the same level in this place. It isn’t always like this. If everything was always like this, I don’t know how I would live. I would never have come here if this, this confusing dark world, had always shown itself right along with the one I love and have grown accustomed to. I can’t control the reality I see. I can’t control what happens in my head. It used to be bright, beautiful, and full of life here all the time. I used to be happy here all the time. But that was before I started losing him, before I knew how he lied, before I discovered the Secret. I think that might be the trouble about disaster: maybe by the time it settles on you, you’re already in the eye of the storm, and you don’t realize what’s happening until it’s already done. Maybe that’s what has happened to us. I only wish I could think clearly, see things clearly, the same way every time.

I walk over to the fire I made earlier this morning — it is struggling, fighting to stay lit against the damp. I warm rainwater over it for tea. No tea leaves, just warm water, enough to pretend; and after all, I am used to pretending. I laugh at this bitterly. I put a cup of my makeshift tea to Sam’s lips, hoping it will warm him. Our cups are dirty tin, and a few plastic ones we’ve collected over time. As much as I am angry with Sam, I hate to see him suffer. Nevertheless, my fist tenses around the cup until I can gauge his reaction.

Abby?
Sam whispers. He is delirious but gentle.
Abby, don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me.

That is what he is most afraid of, what he’s been afraid of for weeks since I’ve started figuring things out. He’s fought to hide every shred of the truth from me, but I have still managed to piece some of it together, and it’s left him terrified. It wasn’t always this way. There was a time when the world began and ended with Sam, and we were happier than I could have imagined would be possible. Now he senses my pity. It is the most powerful emotion I can remember feeling in months. We both know something is about to happen. We are waiting for it, dreading it and wanting it all the same.

I wake up and there is a boulder in my skull and a hand on my cheek. I startle and struggle to lift myself from the ground, and when I do, bolts of pain stab my eyes and brain. I lie back down. I let the hand caress my cheek, because it’s the only good thing I feel right now, and I want to hang on to it.

In the seconds that follow, I assess my surroundings. I am lying in an alley. Or maybe a small, empty lot between two houses. The air is saturated with the smell of cinder and meat, as if there has been a giant cookout nearby. I turn my neck cautiously and feel it creak, hot-poker pain shooting up my head and down my back. I can barely make out the feeling of intense heat, then the flames to my left, which blaze a strange, brilliant white against the last of what looks like it had once been a two-story home. Then I turn to my right and see an angel-god-boy. His face fills my line of vision, infiltrates my nerves and synapses until the hairs on my body rise toward him and my heart strains against my rib cage.

Come with me,
he says urgently. His eyes are molten lava. He looks over his shoulder and takes my hands in his.
Hurry,
he tells me.
They’ll be coming soon.
I hesitate at first, and he tugs my wrist hard.
They’ll come to put it out.

Put what out?

This fire,
he says impatiently, looking behind me.

I turn and stare at the rubble through the smoke haze. I’m sure I’ve never seen the house before. Just to make certain, I look long at the yard, at the houses beyond. I’ve never seen any of them before. I’ve never seen this boy before, either; I am sure of it until just after I’ve thought it, when nothing seems sure at all.

I know you?
I ask. A few seconds tick by, and he stares hard.

Yes,
he says carefully, speaking slower than before.
You know me.
His eyes look confused, like he can’t believe I’d forget.

I let his words sit there in my head until they feel comfortable. The boy looks sweaty, panicked. His eyes dart to one side and then the other, a metronome of glances. He looks afraid. For me?

My eyes move to the striped tank top I’m wearing, then the tattered jeans, both heavy with soot. I don’t recognize these clothes. Something thick lurches in my gut. Would I recognize my face if I saw it?

Come on,
he says again, his voice so tense it might snap.

Who am I?
I whisper. His face is a mask of confusion, and mine is only a mask.

Who are you?

I nod. There is a pause. His eyes dart downward and linger there for a moment, like he’s trying to figure out how to handle me. Like I’m an unpredictable thing.

You’re Abby,
he says, meeting my eyes again.

Abby?
I ask him. The name rolls thick and unfamiliar off my tongue.

Yes,
he says, and his confidence and urgency have returned.
It’s written right here.

He taps my chest and I flinch, but he’s only going for a thin gold chain that encircles my neck. He gives it a quick tug. I look down and see there’s a name formed from cursive gold, an upside-down
Abby.
Is that who I am? A girl who carefully selected this chain from all the rest, mulling first over rows of gold, cursive names?

He’s tugging me again, harder now, saying something:
Abby, we really have to go right now. They’ll be here soon. There were others in there.

Where are they now?

They didn’t make it.

Who are you? How do I know you?
I am reluctant to leave.

Sam,
he says in a gravelly, smoke-congested voice.
I’m your friend, Abby. Now, let’s move.

I nod slowly and a strange look passes over his face, something like pleasure mixed with relief. I remember Sam about as well as the house, but I let him help me stand up anyway and then I nearly collapse, I am coughing so hard. The boulder in my skull has turned into a knife. It halves my brain. Right brain, left brain — they are halved already anyway, so I’m not worried. Sam lifts me all the way up, draping me over his shoulders as if I’m a sack of feed and he is a mule. I press my cheek against his shoulder, where I can faintly feel his skin pulsing with exertion, and it
is
familiar somehow. I feel suddenly as if Sam is the only person I have ever known, and I don’t even mind, because I hear distant voices and all of a sudden I have to leave as badly as he does. Something about all of this seems so desperately wrong.

We are silent for many minutes. My sharp panting sounds staccato against his longer, deeper breaths. I am glad to be on his back. I’m relieved he’s taken charge. I wouldn’t have known where to go on my own. No one is behind us; no one follows. It is just the two of us heading away from everything else.